homemade hickory scales

[homeshow]

I was splitting some hickory and this tree has a strong color break between the clover honey outer wood and the red brown center wood. I'm thinking or putting some on the shelf near the wood stove where we proof the.bread. cure it for a couple weeks then make some bi-color scales, red brown and some honey scale stock. I have a surface planer, miter box, and table saw. So I have all of the tools. I'm a mircata and kydex guy but some striking wood might be nice too.

[DanieltheFarrier]

Might as well.
And is that all you have to do? Let it dry out?

[homeshow]

Core might be the more appropriate word. It's got to get below 8% humidity for me.

[DanieltheFarrier]

But letting it sit and dry will do that?

[bigfootnampa]

But letting it sit and dry will do that?

Maybe!  For such small pieces.  Near the wood stove implies an area that is warm and dry.  You can dry them in minutes or at most a couple of hours in the microwave.  Just keep the heat low enough to touch the wood without burning yourself.  So short heats followed by checking often and cooling periods.  

[son_of_bluegrass]

Wood exposed to air (whither air or kiln dried) will reach equilibrium with the humidity.  You may never reach 8% (some people claim 10 or 12% is the lowest you'll reach air drying, but if it's dry enough you can get lower).  Even if you do, when the humidity goes up the moisture content of the wood will go up as well.  This is why wood shrinks and swells with the changing seasons. (And why a lot of people only use stabilized wood for scales.)

If the location you dry the wood is too warm or has too much air movement, it is prone to splitting.   You can minimize this by sealing the end grain.  I like PVA carpenter's glue for this, it is just about the only thing I use yellow glue for anymore.  Others swear by commercial concoctions (I believe one is called anchor seal) or paint.  Also slow drying will minimize cracks and splits.  I give pieces several months to dry unless the wood is porous enough to dry faster, hickory isn't that porous.

In any case, leave the pieces long.  You should split the pieces through the pith if you aren't cutting them down to scales now.  If you are cutting to scales, leave them oversized.

I prefer to de-bark before starting to dry wood since a lot of the bugs that attack the wood enjoy the bark and wood just under the bark and removing this reduces what will start eating your wood.

 

Good luck.

 

ron

[DanieltheFarrier]

Thanks for the input. Sorry if I stole the thread:)

[bnewberry]

Wood exposed to air (whither air or kiln dried) will reach equilibrium with the humidity.  You may never reach 8% (some people claim 10 or 12% is the lowest you'll reach air drying, but if it's dry enough you can get lower).  Even if you do, when the humidity goes up the moisture content of the wood will go up as well.  This is why wood shrinks and swells with the changing seasons. (And why a lot of people only use stabilized wood for scales.)

If the location you dry the wood is too warm or has too much air movement, it is prone to splitting.   You can minimize this by sealing the end grain.  I like PVA carpenter's glue for this, it is just about the only thing I use yellow glue for anymore.  Others swear by commercial concoctions (I believe one is called anchor seal) or paint.  Also slow drying will minimize cracks and splits.  I give pieces several months to dry unless the wood is porous enough to dry faster, hickory isn't that porous.

In any case, leave the pieces long.  You should split the pieces through the pith if you aren't cutting them down to scales now.  If you are cutting to scales, leave them oversized.

I prefer to de-bark before starting to dry wood since a lot of the bugs that attack the wood enjoy the bark and wood just under the bark and removing this reduces what will start eating your wood.

 

Good luck.

 

ron

 

+ 1

 

This is good advice!

[bigfootnampa]

While Son_of _bluegrass does give good advice... there have been hundreds of thousands of knives handled with air-dried woods over many centuries... and most have given pretty good service too.  The shrinkage and expansion of wood pieces as small as knife scales is a pretty minor movement... disastrous if only glue holds them on but easily handled by pinned or tanged construction.  I regularly dry wood in my microwave and the dynamic there is much different because the moisture is actually steamed and boiled out of the wood, rather than leaking slowly out through the end grain or side grain.  No point in sealing end grain if you are microwave drying IMO.  You do sometimes get a bit of minor splitting near the ends of the pieces.  Usually not a big problem but it IS good to have a little extra length so that the splits can be cut away and discarded.  If I do end up with some minor splits in my handle stock that cannot be discarded it is quite simple for me to incorporate them in the finish and they are more often an extra attraction than a defect.  I prefer to work with green wood and then dry it quickly because the shaping is so pleasant dealing with green wood.   Splitting off the pith has become standard advice when riving wood and it has some merit... I have lately been making lots of handles (not just for knives) from the full diameters of branch woods (including the pith) and have yet to have any serious problems with that approach... so I am discarding the standard advice as flawed at best and possibly worse than no advice at all.  Branch handles have served mankind for many millennia and they offer terrific design potentials, incredible efficiency and are a very "GREEN" technology that is also an old tradition.

[homeshow]

Sealing end grains keeps moisture in. That's why commercial wood kilns never do this and you seal the ends when you want your logs to retain moisture if you can't mill right away. There are ways around atmospheric moisture.

[son_of_bluegrass]

I didn't intend to mislead anyone.  

Smaller pieces do tend to be more stable by the nature of there not being enough change in the seasonal shrinking/swelling to put enough stress on the piece to crack it.   Larger pieces generally split to the pith, smaller ones may not.

I regularly use pieces I've air dried myself for everything from knife handles to boxes to small tables.  If you know how to design for the wood movement it isn't a problem, for knife handles this means not relying on just glue to hold it on.

Sealing the end grain when air drying serves to slow the moisture leaving the wood which allows it to adjust to the stress of drying better.  Commercial kilns may seal the end grain, I've bought kilned lumber that the ends were sealed.  Whether that was because they weren't able to kiln it right away or for some other reason I don't know.

 

ron